The invention pertains to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to systems for facilitating mating and detachment of electrical connectors of the types typically used in computing, networking, and other high bandwidth applications.
As the processing power, storage capacity and throughput of digital data processing devices increases, greater demands are placed on designers to provide high bandwidth digital signal pathways, or buses. The buses of early personal computers, for example, typically permitted the transfer of only eight bits of information at a time. Though small by today's standards, these buses were more than adequate to carry the addressing and data signals used by central processing and memory units of the day. In the course of twenty years, buses capable of transferring 32 or 64 bits of information have become de rigeur in workstations and high-end computing systems.
Buses fixed onto a single piece of equipment typically comprise bands of copper or other conducting material etched into layers of a non-conductive substrate. Where the buses carry information between two pieces of equipment, connectors are used. Typically, these comprise a combination of a plug and a socket that mate to provide both electrical and, where necessary, mechanical coupling. A common example is the 25-pin plug used to connect a printer cable to the parallel port socket on the back of a personal computer.
More compact and higher throughput connectors are often used to connect digital data processing printed circuit boards to one another. The VITA Standards Organization, for example, calls for a 160-pin, 5-row connector to couple circuit boards that operate in accord with the VME-64 Extensions Draft Standard 1.1-1997. These connectors are small, measuring approximately 3.5".times.0.5", so as not to consume valuable "real estate" on the boards or within their hosts. In switching applications, multiple connectors are typically placed side-by-side, with each coupling a respective bus or bus segment.
The forces required to mate and detach such connectors can be rather large. Insertion of a VME64 160-pin, 5-row connector into a corresponding socket can require forces up to 40 pounds. In addition to the stresses this places on the boards and other circuit components to which the connectors are mounted, it can make multi-connector connections virtually impossible even for those with the strongest of hands.
An object of this invention, accordingly, is to provide improved systems for coupling electrical components.
Another object of the invention is to provide such systems as are adapted for use with pre-existing connectors, including without limitation the aforementioned VME64 160-pin, 5-row connectors.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide such systems as are adapted for use with multi-connector configurations.
Still another object of the invention is to provide such systems as consume little real estate on the boards or other electrical components in or on which they are used.
Yet still another object of the invention is to provide such systems as can be used with "interposers" or other such intermediate circuit components.